Summary

West Side Story is one of the greatest musicals of all time, effectively blending Broadway with a symphonic grandeur (courtesy of Leonard Bernstein, who put music to Stephen Sondheim's lyrics), accents from jazz and Latin music, and a rarely heard (in Broadway) toughness on classics like "Jet Song," "America," and "Cool." The 1957 original Broadway cast recording still holds up today, but isn't as good as the movie soundtrack cast recording. If you, like most listeners, are most familiar with the work through the film, it'll be a bit jarring to find the songs presented in different sequence ("Cool," for instance, comes before the rumble, and "Gee, Officer Krupke" is one of the last tracks). [The 1998 CD reissue has value beyond replacing old scratched-up LPs: there are nine bonus tracks of instrumental "Symphonic Dances" from the production, recorded in 1961 by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Bernstein (although these only add to a little more than 20 minutes of material), as well as historical liner notes.] ~ Richie Unterberger